In the commercial food service industry, efficiency and consistency in the preparation of food products are highly desired goals. Efficient preparation lends to customer satisfaction since customers can quickly be served freshly prepared food products that are high in sensory appeal. Customer satisfaction is further enhanced by food preparation techniques which lend themselves to convenient control, since customers can be assured of receiving food products of consistent quality.
One technique for enhancing the efficiency with which food products are prepared concerns heating or cooking the products from two sides simultaneously. In the case of ground meat patties such as hamburgers, sausage, and the like, such two-sided cooking techniques have been found to very substantially decrease the cooking time required when compared with more conventional single-sided grilling or broiling. Nevertheless, attempts to perfect commercially suitable two-sided cooking devices, such as for cooking frozen meat patties, have met with only limited success. In particular, the greatly accelerated cooking achieved with two-sided techniques has been found to greatly affect the criticality of the usual cooking parameters, such as cooking temperatures, cooking times, and the like. Accordingly, the consistency of preparation required by commercial restaurant establishments has heretofore been difficult to achieve when employing two-sided cooking techniques.
Thus, in order to take full advantage of the substantially reduced cooking times that can be achieved with two-sided cooking, a two-sided cooking apparatus must be configured for preparing foods in a consistent and predictable manner. Configuring such an apparatus for use in preparing different food products desirably enhances its versatility. Finally, an arrangement which permits its cooking capacities to be selectively varied as the volume of business may require desirably enhances both the efficiency and versatility of such a device.